Paul Hindemith's Trio for Viola, Heckelphone and Piano: Analysis 

I always put Hindemith in the "worthy but boring" category. Thanks for encouraging me to give him another listen

I learned how to write counterpoint by reading Hindemith's Exercises for Two Part Writing; part two of the Craft of Musical Composition. I would whole heartedly recommend it for anyone wanting to get into this type of composition. Apart from a couple of chapters gathering dust somewhere at Yale University, his Exercises for Three Part Writing remains his only teaching resource without an English translation. I tried some 20 years ago to get a certain publishing company interested in remedying this but it became clear that, in their view, as there was no prospect of making any money from such an endeavour, they were not interested. I even offered to personally fund the translation - I had the book in German - but they basically told me to piss off.

Excellent overview! I became enamored with Hindemith back in college when I apprenticed a truly gifted cellist who was coaching a quartet for a whole semester on Hindemith’s “Clarinet Quartet” (1938). Every week we would meet and the quartet would work on the piece with the coach (while I often turned pages for the pianist). Then I would meet with the coach separately for another session where he and I would discuss the piece and what to focus on as a performer presenting this music. With me being a composer, it was a really life changing moment when I could see the delicate relationship from compositional idea, to the printed music, to the players’ interpretation, to the actual realization in a concert. Truly fantastic! I highly recommend everyone to hear this piece - you might almost think it’s Ravel!

Regarding the "Jazziness" of the second movement (part 1), I'd add that the left hand of the piano, in some ways, approximates a walking bass line: The regular and quick changes, the care not to repeat the same note too often, and, of course, the staccato.

I studied and performed the trumpet concerto in college..I always "felt" the piano part. It seemed jaunty and almost arrhythmic ...and until your video I never realized how simple it was..actually I always felt i was struggling against the piano ..but perhaps this was hindemith's intention all along..to teach perspective as a performer..thanks for sharing all your hard work. I personally think Hindemith had a wicked sense of humor

I adore Hindemith. Thanks.

I’ve been waiting for this with bated breath, one of my favourite composers of the twentieth century. His books on composition and harmony were the first things to give me a glimpse of moving beyond standard tonal harmony into something new.

Probably the greatest heckelphone composition ever!

I never before realized how repetitive the rhythm is in lots of Hindemith's music. Maybe that's part of what attracted me to his music when I was younger, the repetitive rhythms give something to latch onto during some of the "chromatic craziness." Thanks again for a great video!

Excellent! Thanks. One of my favorites is Hindemith's Symphony in B-flat for Concert Band. Also, the Cello Concerto.

Thank you for remembering one of my very favorite composers. I have often found a wonderful sense of melancholy in his music. The recordings by Herbert Blomstedt are never removed from my playlist. I had one beautiful memory of climbing up our humble little Mount Royal at sunrise while listening to Mathis Der Maler. I could only fall on the ground under the great expanse of a winter sky and lose myself completely in the moment. Your right that some of his works may be a bit clunky, so indeed is life. Then again, there are moments of such profundity that it makes one happy to be alive in this world of modern music. On a side note, you live in Strassbourg. My favorite book ever was written there. Tristan, by Gottried Von Strassbourg. A fifty thousand line poem in Middle High German. A most musical language and by far the best telling of this classic of 11th century Christian Mysticism. Love your channel and best of luck.

I have absolutely no idea what this guy is talking about and I can't imagine how anyone gets good at composing music like this. It's like I'm listening to someone explain complex mathematics.

I bloody love Hindemith and found you recently through your old JBP interview, so this video is a real gift

Look at you posting two videos in a week. Good stuff sam, never liked hindemith but now i have a better idea on how to get something out of him.

In an age of distractions so few take the time to be truly skilled at any one discipline. Bravo Samuel, great analysis.

Wunderbar, vielen Dank Samuel!

Ah I love this piece! Thank you!

Thanks! This was really entertaining and informative.

Superb exposition of Hindemith the man and his music. I learnt a lot.

Hindemith has always been an intriguing but distant composer. Thank you for an awesome video once again!

I had never really understood Hindemith until now. Thanks so much for your explanation of his style and musical philosophies.

Really glad to see this. I've heard his name often but never knowingly heard much if any of his work; interesting and accessible stuff. I'm surprised not to have heard more of him.

your videos are so entertaining! Is a nice way to get into composers i never actually gave a shot..

Great video! Would love to perform this piece someday. I think Hindemith's Oboe Sonata is one of his best works and certainly one of the best in the oboe repertoire. Would be cool if you did a video analysis of that sonata!

I'm a post punk, dream pop, psychedelic pop, experimental, singer songwriter kinda guy. But I always tend to jump on some Shostakovitch or Philip Glass and just adore their stuff and now Hindemith, thanks to you. I'll check out your channel more, great stuff.

Heard about you on Adam Neely's stream today, so happy I found you! This is really interesting and well-produced.

This is excellent.

Great video as always. I'd really appreciate an analysis of some of Tōru Takemitsu's works. Thanks in advantage.

Hindemith is a huge reason why 50 years ago I chose to be a composer. Today, I'm considered an oddball.

This was surprisingly entertaining!

Paul Hindemith is amazing!

My favourite composer.

Just your few words made sense for me out of the famous viola sonata . Hindemith is in all the textbooks of my mother's period . I ve yet to hear any of his music progrmmed .

Thanks Samuel! Fascinating! I'm working on this piece at the moment and will be doing two performances of it in Frankfurt in Hindemith's Tower on 12th May. It would be great to meet you if you are anywhere nearby around then.

It's only quite recently I realised opinion on Hindemith seems to be divided- first I heard from him was Kammermusik, and have found that (and pretty much everything else from him I've heard) to be pretty easy on the ears, but not lacking in depth (a bit like Stravinsky or Bartok). Great analysis as always

You should really do some analysis of J Dilla. He was the modern version of Mozart. Child prodigy, died in his 30s, left behind a body of work that inspired and changed the following generations. I'd suggest going from Fantastic Vol. 2 to his magnum opus Donuts. His collaboration album with Madlib "Jaylib" and his experimental beat albums "Welcome 2 Detroit" and "Ruff Drafts" are also must listens. Polystylistic, his music ranged from Brazillian sambas, to Detroit techno. Rhythmically, his off-kilter, sixteenth note triplet swing, "drunken style" innovations (along with D'angelo) basically changed how 21st century drummers have played from Chris Dave, to Karriem Riggins, to Questlove, to many others

At 2:30 Hindemith evidently invented arcade game jingles back in 1922! I heard about Hindemith decades ago, as a moderate in the wild years of early 20th century modernism.

Why is life so trippy

Somehow surreal like René Magritte the Belgian surrealist or perhaps M.C.Escher as much as your cartoonist. He leads you down the tonal path; but huh? His texts about counterpoint should be mentioned. I love that Gould recording of one of his fugues .

If as you state he was an expressionist, then how could you miss that much of society is repetitious? Love Hindemith, thanks for the vid.

Samuel, this is great, and the Trio is a piece I'd never come across, thanks for bringing it to my attention. Another Hindemith work from this period that fascinates me is the Konzertmusik Op.49 - for solo piano, brass and two harps. Do you know it? The third movement is a theme and three variations for the piano and harps alone, the last movement contains a setting of an old German folksong 'Reiters Abschied'. I think it's a very fine work.

Hey, i'd love if you would make your videos also available as podcasts, if thats possible. Thought i'd let you know. Thanks.

25:07 Isn't that a 3 against 5 polymeter, not polyrhythm? It's not that 3 divisions in one part are taking the same amount of time as 5 in another, but that one part is split into sections of 3 units while the other 5. Edit: just after posting the question I realized where the polyrhythm is. Never mind haha

would you like make a video about john fahey

I should have known you were making a video about Hindemith, how can such an important composer slip my mind so easily?

Hey Mr Andreyev, what's your favorite LP? Great video, the quality is really improving!

In German Duett ≠ Duo ;) as it follows an arioso, also this term refers to opera. ;)

could you provide a list of 12 tone compositions for viola solo.

The aesthetic isn't the old world classical or heroic aesthetic it's lighter, where as Schoenberg might still be an extension of that Faustian thing somehow. Perhaps like T.S. Elliot, E.E. Commings, Stravinsky, Chaplin and the Jazz Age he too was influenced by that horrible war.

15:00 I wonder: is this free wandering tonality somehow related to Coltrane's Giant Steps?

You should do Opus clavicembalisticum next

👍🏼🙏❤️

19.40 et seq. D sharp????

10:13 lol he ridin'

Is the heckelphone the viola of the oboe section?

Thanks for the grest video, but did you know that Hindemith used a tonal system? He has written a theory, whuch advances the typical harmony. I mention this because you sais his harmony is freely, but I don't think so, he hated the concept of atonality he was aware of being constantly in a tonal centre

5:50 This... kinda sounds like metal, in a very weird way ;D

I have a love hate with Hindemith, some of it is great, like some of the Ludus Tonalis, but his piano sonatas sound like german jazz... in a bad way :D

The th is is just pronounced as a t.

If only he carried on writing stuff as good as the solo sonata! Instead of all those sonatas which are, in. the end, scales going up and down -dur-de-nur-nur-nur type rhythms and the strong suspicion that you could adjust the tessitura and change instrumentation and then have a'new' sonata.

Hindemith, my way. Forget Pierre Boulez.

If every viewer contributed $1 for watching, this video would make you $13,000

"the same rhythmic formula repeated mechanically over and over" the dude invented avant pop, it seems. 100 years from now all pop music will sound like it, but with synths